Pierre de La Rue’s stature seems to me to grow with each new recording that appears. These two have much in common: both have a Mass as their centrepiece (La Rue wrote about 30), performed by a cast of all-male soloists. Both ensembles are distinguished by superb vocal quality, including secure and expressive countertenors and basses with commanding presences and impressive low notes upon which La Rue makes frequent calls.

This is Capilla Flamenca’s third recording of La Rue, and is no way inferior to its predecessors. The plainsong-based Mass Ave Maria is a reflective, solemn four-voice setting typical of the composer’s elegant shaping of lines, which counterbalances and softens an uncompromising austerity. It’s not a long work by his standards and it’s made shorter by a tendency to rush some of the sections in duple time (my only reservation); but its brevity accommodates an impressive recital of Marian antiphon settings. These are a touch more outgoing than the Mass and in themselves warrant the strongest recommendation. Each of the motets is accompanied by the original plainchant, in the manner of a Marian Vespers service; these plainchants, too, are expressively executed.

Chant is an even stronger presence on Amarcord’s disc. Here it is not thematically connected with the polyphony but its sequence of Mass Propers contrasts with it very effectively: Amarcord give it an even greater sense of solemnity than Capilla Flamenca, perhaps because the sound recording has a greater presence. That contrast is welcome, because the Mass Incessament, reckoned to be one of his last, is extraordinarily rich (how rich? Well, a rich chocolate dessert laced with kirsch might just about come close). Listening to it, one wonders why it has never been recorded before. The five-voice texture tempts the composer to relax his usual austerity, and while the intellectual toughness and lack of compromise remain (the two lowest voices are in canon at the fourth from end to end), they are clothed in such full-bodied sonorities as almost to overwhelm the listener. Amarcord deserve the highest credit for articulating La Rue’s dense contrapuntal web so clearly and taking such care over details. The climax of the song on which the Mass is based shows how deftly its architecture has been shaped, and is only one of many details one could point out. I hope these young singers will continue performing this repertoire; meanwhile, this is not to be missed.